GOLD PROCESSING CENTER DISCOVERED IN THE ANCIENT KINGDOM OF KUSH

Staff Report

CHICAGO, 19 JUNE 2007—
Archaeologists from the University of Chicago have discovered a gold
processing center along the middle Nile, an installation that produced the
precious metal sometime between 2000 and 1500 B.C. The center, along with
a cemetery they discovered, documents extensive control by the first
sub-Saharan kingdom, the kingdom of
Kush
.

The team from the University’s Oriental Institute
found more than 55 grinding stones made of granite-like gneiss along the
Nile at the site of Hosh el-Geruf, about 225 miles north of Khartoum, Sudan
. The region was also known also known as Nubia
in ancient times. Groups of similar
grinding stones have been found on desert sites, mostly in Egypt, where
they were used to grind ore to recover the precious metal. The ground ore
was likely washed with water nearby to separate the gold flakes.

The gold extraction site at Hosh el-GurufPhoto courtesy of
University of Chicago

"This large number of grinding stones and other tools used to crush and
grind ore shows that the site was a center for organized gold production,"
said Geoff Emberling, Director of the Oriental Institute Museum and a
co-leader of the expedition. The research was funded by the the National
Geographic Society and the Packard Humanities Institute, which also has
offered to support all the teams working in the Fourth Cataract salvage
project, the location of the University’s expedition.

"Even today, panning for gold is a traditional activity in the area,"
said Bruce Williams, a Research Associate at the Oriental Institute and
also a co-leader of the expedition. "Water is a key ingredient for the
production of gold and it is possible that bits of gold ore were found in
gravel deposits nearby in wadis (dry creek beds) and crushed on the site."

Hassan Ahmed Ali panning for gold in al-Widay
villagePhoto courtesy of University of Chicago

The team also excavated a cemetery where they uncovered burials with
artifacts that suggest the region was part of the Kingdom of Kush, which
would have ruled an area much larger than previously believed. Such
discoveries show that the kingdom, the first in sub-Saharan Africa to
control a territory as much as 750 miles in length.

"This work is extremely exciting because it can give us our first look
at the economic organization of this very important, but little known
ancient African state," said Gil Stein, Director of the Oriental
Institute. "Until now, virtually all that we have known about Kush came
from the historical records of their Egyptian neighbors, and from limited
explorations of monumental architecture at the Kushite capital city Kerma.
The Oriental Institute excavations at Hosh el-Geruf will allow scholars to
understand the rural sources of the riches of Kush."

Black-topped beaker, 5 inches tall, of the
Classic Kerma period (ca. 1750-1550 BC)Photo courtesy of University of
Chicago

The University of Chicago expedition is part of an international
recovery project underway intended to find artifacts related to Kush and
other civilizations that flourished in the area before archaeological
sites are covered by a steadily rising Nile. The area is being flooded by
Hamdab or Merowe Dam, located at the downstream end of the Fourth
Cataract. The lake to be formed by this dam will flood about 100 miles of
the Nile Valley in an area that had previously seen no archaeological
work.

"Surveys suggest that there are as many as 2,500 archaeological sites
to be investigated in the area. Fortunately, this is an international
effort-teams from Sudan, England, Poland, Hungary, Germany and the United
States have been working since 1996, with a large increase in the number
of archaeologists working in the area since 2003," Emberling said.

Smaller
grindstones and hammerstones from Hosh el-GuruPhoto courtesy of
University of Chicago

The area will probably be flooded next year, but the team hopes to
return for another season of exploration. The sites studied by Emberling
and Williams provide important new information on the ancient Kingdom of
Kush, which flourished from about 2000 to 1500 B.C.

"The Kingdom of Kush was unusual in that it was able to use the tools
of power-military and governance-without having a system of writing, an
extensive bureaucracy or numerous urban centers," Emberling said.
"Studying Kush helps scholars have a better idea of what statehood meant
in an ancient context outside such established power centers of Egypt and
Mesopotamia." Among the artifacts they found in burials nearby at the site
al-Widay were pottery vessels that appear to have been made in the center
of the kingdom, a city called Kerma, some 225 miles downstream.

The graves for the cemetery, which were for elite members of the
community, included 90 closely-packed, roughly constructed stone circles
covered shafts that were circular and lined with stones, a feature noted
in the so-called Pan Graves of Lower Nubia and Egypt during the Second
Intermediate Period, about 1700 B.C., said Emberling. "These, and the
broad-bottomed black-topped cups they contained, are generally assigned to
the Medjay, people of the Eastern Desert, who at times served as soldiers
and police in Egypt."

Burial
mound, about six feet in diameter from the Kerma period cemetery of
al-Widay Photo courtesy of University of Chicago

"A few of the tombs had the
rectangular shafts of the later Classic Kerma burials, graceful
tulip-shaped beakers and jars of Kerma type and even imported vessels from Egypt, as
well as scarabs and faience and carnelian beads,
and there were even several beds or biers," he said. "Finds of
Kerma material at the Fourth Cataract was one of the major surprises of
the salvage effort and suggests the leaders of Kush were
able to expand their influence much further than was
previously known, possibly including as much as 750 miles along the banks of
the Nile," said Williams.